The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), with grant support from Lumina Foundation for Education, is conducting a study of students currently enrolled in business programs. In order to better serve you, your college/school of business would like you to take this short survey. The answers will be very valuable in improving curriculum planning and course relevance for future students. Business faculty, alumni, and employers throughout the state also are being invited to participate in the study.

PARTICIPATION

You are invited to participate in a study that asks for your opinion on a number of general competencies relevant to your business education. The survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. Your participation in this study is voluntary. You may refuse to participate without penalty.

BENEFITS

Only through such broad consultation with different stakeholders will the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board—the state coordinator of this study—be able to arrive at a decision about what learning outcomes are important for business graduates.

CONFIDENTIALITY

You will never be personally identified at any point in the process of this study. There is no personally identifiable information on the survey form itself. With respect to Survey Monkey, anonymous responses will be collected through the use of the "Web Link Collector." This method does not track names or emails. We will not save the IP addresses in the Analyze section. As responses come in, each survey will be marked as a "Normal Response" in the Response Type field. There will be no name or email associated with it.Given that the surveys can be completed from any computer (e.g., personal, work, school), we are unable to guarantee the security of the computer on which you choose to enter your responses. As a participant in our study, we want you to be aware that certain "keylogging" software programs exist that can be used to track or capture data that you enter and/or websites that you visit.

CONTACT

If you have questions at any time about the study or its procedures, you may contact Dr. Mary E. Smith, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Academic Planning and Policy at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, at 512-427-6213 or mary.smith@thecb.state.tx.us, or Ms. Debbie Rodriguez, Program Specialist for Academic Planning and Policy for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, at 512-427-6547 or debbie.rodriguez@thecb.state.tx.us. The institutional representative for this survey is Dr. Michael A. Abebe at College of Business Administration, UTPA. Please contact him at 956-665-3392 or abebema@utpa.edu.

If you feel you have not been treated according to the descriptions included on this form, or your rights as a participant in the research have not been honored during the course of this project, you may contact UTPA’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) office at 956-665-2889 or irb@utpa.edu. You are also invited to provide anonymous feedback to the IRB by visiting www.utpa.edu/IRBfeedback.